


Vetinari's Terrier

by wearerofthehat



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6501919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearerofthehat/pseuds/wearerofthehat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots exploring the name, and the relationship behind it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vimes tries to tell Vetinari he isn't his dog

‘No, you can’t make me do that.’

Vimes had gone through jumping hot rage and out the other side; his face was completely wooden and when he spoke his voice was not a shout, but a low, menacing growl. It would have terrified anyone else, but Vetinari was only distinctly not amused by him, in a way that made it clear that amused was exactly the sort of thing he would be, if he deigned to show it. Predictably, this just made Vimes angrier. If he had been beyond a jumping hot rage before, he was now mad enough to leap over the Tower of Art. He slammed his hands on the tyrant’s desk and continued in that same low growl.

‘You may pay my wages, you may be my boss, but you are not my master. I am not your dog to command. You can’t constantly be telling me to sit, stay, or go fetch – ’

Vetinari only smiled, completely ignoring the hands on his desk, and the fact that the Commander’s nose was only inches away from his own. He slowly ran his gaze over the parts of Vimes that were not obstructed by his desk, from the top of his head, past his broad shoulders and stopped at his waist before returning to his eyes.

‘Oh, but I rather think you are.’

His voice was bright enough to blind and sharp enough to cut. Suddenly Vimes’ anger left him like helium from a balloon, and a flustered embarrassment gurgled in its wake. What was that? There was a heat in his face that had nothing to do with anger. He _had_ been angry, hadn’t he? And now he was blushing. How could he do that to him…?

‘Don’t let me detain you, Commander.’

Dazed, Vimes turned and headed out of the office. It was only after he got through the door that he realised how supremely he had belied everything he just said.

The crash of fist-on-wall sounded through the Oblong Office and Vetinari grinned.


	2. Sybil realises that her Sam is Vetinari’s Vimes

One evening Sybil went inside after mucking out the Dragon pen to find her husband wreathed in smoke, slumped over the kitchen table and drawing desperately on a cigar. There were several other spent cigars and a sizeable pile of ash on the table in front of him, in which she thinks that she would find an ash tray if she subjected it to serious excavation.

_Dear Sam._

‘What’s wrong, Dear?’

She knew it wasn’t a case. If that were so, he would be out on the street, proceeding furiously, instilling the fear of Vimes into the heart of every living thing that he passed. Indeed, if it were an especially bad case, then she might not see him for days on end. Not necessarily because he spent all that time solving it – really, she knew enough about his work to understand that a lot of it was spent waiting: waiting for the other shoe to drop [1], waiting for inspiration to strike, waiting for another lead to follow – but because those cases did something to him, influenced him in some way he would not allow himself to bring home.

This was something else, something rather more personal and domestic.

She guessed that he came home early with something to say to her, something he felt he had to say though he did not want to. Then, upon realising that she was otherwise engaged at that moment, had used it as an excuse to settle in and wait for her. Perhaps he even made a deal with himself, delaying the conversation, but making no secret that something was bothering him. Promising himself that if she asked, he would tell her.

The last time she had seen him like this was a few days before their wedding. He had told her that he had got incredibly drunk and that if she wanted to break off the engagement he would understand. After she made him tell her what set him off she had confronted Vetinari about it. She had to hold back a smile at that thought because really, now was not the time, but who would have thought that the tyrant of the city would go so very still, and his eyes go so very round, when faced with a stern telling off by a very large and very angry noblewoman? [2] 

‘Sam?’

It’d been a while since she spoke and he hadn’t acknowledged her.

‘They’re calling me Vetinari’s terrier.’

He was so far inside his own head that the words only had the barest hint of his usual anger, and he still hadn’t even looked at her. It was as if he were talking to himself and any relevance to her own words was merely coincidental. Really, what was it about that man that gave him such ability to influence her husband? 

Unless… _oh, but of course_.

This new title wouldn’t affect him so much if it didn’t have some truth to it, and probably far more than he liked to acknowledge.

‘Oh well, everyone knows you aren’t a dog,’

Sybil made her voice light and airy and she paused significantly, watching for her husband’s reaction. Something in her response finally plucked at those watchman’s instincts of his, yanking him out of his reverie. But his response was not that of the hunter, but the hunted. He went stiff, and where before he hadn’t looked at her because he had not been fully aware of her presence, now he was not looking at her because he couldn’t make eye-contact.

She had all the confirmation that she needed.

‘But you _are_ Havelock’s.’

Finally, Sam looked at her, and those eyes held such shame and determination, desperation and love that Sybil was struck by her husband’s sheer capacity to feel. _This is what attracts Havelock,_ she thought, dazed, _and it is what allows him to use Sam as he does._

‘Sybil, you know I would never…’

‘Oh Sam, I know. But you needn’t be so worked up. There's quite enough of you for the both of us.’

She knew this was true, for she had often thought that there resided in her husband two different men. There was her Sam; the Sam Vimes who went out and came home again, and then there is the Sam Vimes of the time in between who hardly belonged to her. The one who got muddy and bloodied in rooftop chases and fights with men with names like Harry “The Boltcutter” Weems. The one who spent his bad nights storming through the Shades daring someone, anyone, to cross his path, who carried an anger festering in him that he would not bring home.

If she had just discovered that this other Sam Vimes belonged to Havelock Vetinari, well she hadn’t _really_ lost anything, had she?

And she couldn’t really claim to be surprised.

For a moment she grew nostalgic for a time when she believed that after he had married her he would stop working. Maybe then he would have been all hers. She scolded herself for being foolish. She only had to think about the last time she found him in slumped over the kitchen table wreathed in smoke to know that it would not have worked out for anybody.

This thought drew her back to the present, and she saw that Vimes was looking at her with shock, of course, but also a little less shame, and a small, very cautious hope. And love, such love directed at her that she hated herself for ever being so selfish that she would wish for more of this dear, dear man than she already had.

There was a pain in the back of her throat.

‘Now, I was just about to put the kettle on the dragon. Would you like some tea?’

 

 

  1. There is a little known place in Uberwald where other shoes fall from the sky with such force and regularity that residents carry reinforced umbrellas every time they go outside. You may also wonder  _what happens to the first shoe?_  There is, in fact, _another_ little known place in Uberwald where first shoes burst up out of the ground, reaching heights above fifteen feet before disappearing. For don’t the History Monks write ‘for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction’? And anything that they write must be actual and observed fact. 

  2. It is up to you to decide whether Vetinari’s reaction was due to amusement, fear, or arousal, or a mixture of all three.




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The paragraph where Sybil thinks about how there are actually two Sam Vimses, and that she doesn't really have any claim to the man he is when he is at work may sound familiar; it's taken from 'The Fifth Elephant' (all credit goes, of course, to Terry Pratchett).


	3. Lord Rust’s Complaints about Vimes cease to amuse Vetinari

‘Is he busy in there?’

Vetinari heard Lord Rust’s pompous voice coming from the antechamber to the Oblong Office.

‘His Lordship is always busy,’

Vetinari gave an audible exhale that for him, might just be called a laugh. Oh, it was true enough, but it amused him that Drumknott might think his work ethic worth defending.

‘I mean, is he talking to anyone important?’

‘Well no, but…’

At this Vetinari sighed. If Drumknott had any hope of keeping him out of his office, it lay in never letting Rust get a word in. That ‘well’ was bad enough, and that ‘but’ would be nowhere near strong enough to forestall a man who persisted in believing that he had a right to go anywhere and say anything by virtue of his birth.

Sure enough, Rust’s voice came from the other side of the door: ‘In that case, I will see him now.’

‘No, you don’t have an appointment. Let me arrange one for you and you will hear from us shortly.’

‘You insolent little clerk, I wasn’t asking.’

_Now really,_ Vetinari thought, as the man burst through the door, _that was too much_. Drumknott followed him through as if to forestall him, but Vetinari signalled to him not to bother. He left, closing the door behind him.

‘You can’t go on letting him do this, Havelock!’ Rust was saying, ‘last month, he waltzed into the Assassin’s Guild-house as if he owned it…’

_Oh_ , Vetinari thought. _This is going to be fun._

‘He does – ’

_He does own it,_ Vetinari was going to say, but Rust’s selective deafness seemed to block his words before it travelled from his ears to his brain. A rather dangerous mechanism, when talking to a tyrant.

‘I can deal with dwarves and trolls in the watch,’ Rust continued, ‘I won’t have anyone say that I don’t give them the standing of proper persons, but he has them all go to the front door for their enquiries! Watchmen, coming to the front door, I ask you! And just now, just now, he arrested my son on some trumped up charge of abuse! He was well within his rights to cut a few of his slave’s fingers off for tying his shoelaces too tight! It was gross negligence, why, his foot could have fallen off through loss of blood circulation!’

‘I do hope you meant that he cut the fingers off his _servant_ , my Lord. After all, I do not allow people to keep slaves in Ank-Morpork.’

He wrote a reminder to himself to check on the employees kept in the Rust household [1]. This, at least, got through to him. For a moment.

‘Yes… yes of course I meant servant. Can’t imagine why I would have said anything else. But that is not the point! Back when this city worked as it ought to, being arrested was for the commoners! Vimes is a jumped up nobody upturning the natural order of things!’

The witches of Lancre talk of second thoughts as the thoughts that people had about their own thinking [2], and Vetinari made sure to always devote a part of his thought process to them exclusively. Now this part watched on in removed surprise as the rest of his thoughtscape was besieged with violent red and black flags that whipped and cracked in a sudden, strong wind. Moments ago he had viewed Rust with a certain academic amusement at the follies of mankind. But there was nothing academic in his attitude toward him now.

This was _personal_.

Perhaps it had something to do with the old memory of a man who had taken part in a revolution, not because he sought to gain anything from a regime change, but because it was _right_. A man who prevented a riot with only an open door and a hot cup of cocoa. A man who, after what should have been a victory for him, and everyone he fought for, was murdered in the name of _the natural order of things_ ; that dirty phrase trotted about by powerful men keen on keeping their power.

Or perhaps it was out of admiration for Vimes himself, for his desperate belief that everyone ought to be protected by the law and answerable to it, and his burning fury when reality did not conform to his standards.

Either way, his posture shifted imperceptibly from that of a cat batting idly at a gold fish just to see if it would react, to that of a stalking lioness about to pounce.

Rust didn’t notice.

‘You talk of him as if he is a naughty terrier, sticking his nose in where it is not wanted, relieving himself on the carpet and gnawing on the furniture.’

His tone changed as well. Before, it had been light as in weightless; a playful tone that scared those who recognised it because it said that Vetinari found something funny, and the joke was on them. Now it was light as in bright light, the sort that did not allow for shadows, throwing dark corners into sharp relief. People who recognised this one tended to tremble in fear. After all, everyone is guilty of something. Of course, this too was lost on Lord Rust.

‘Yes, that is exactly what I am getting at! He has got to stop!’

Vetinari paused, letting what any other person would have recognised as a deadly silence fill the room.

This gave his second thoughts a few seconds in which to analyse the things he wanted to say, looking into their possible political ramifications. He decided that, on the whole, it could only improve things. If Rust really thought that he could tell him what to do in such a manner, he had spent far too much time allowing people to think that he listened to them.

There would, of course, be repercussions. Assassination attempts, on himself and Vimes. And he would probably have to start a few more secret revolutionary groups to attract the new conspirators. 

All in a day's work, really.

With this decided, he spoke. ‘My lord,’ he said, in the same light, bright tone as before, ‘reading your complaints about the Commander of the City Watch has, up until now, been a rather enjoyable and humorous past time. But I do not appreciate being told how to run this city, so let me make this quite clear.

‘If Sir Samuel Vimes is a terrier, he is _my_ terrier. The Commander of the watch is an employee of the city, and since _I_ am the tyrant of the city, he carries _my_ authority.’

He paused, just long enough for dramatic effect.

‘Everything he does is with my implicit sanction. He employs dwarfs and trolls because I encouraged it. He and his men take their enquiries to your front door because I allow it. He arrested your son precisely because I permitted it and he will only release him when I demand it.

_'I will say,_ your complaints are not helping his case.’

Vetinari leaned back in satisfaction as he watched Rust stand there, gaping.

Finally.

‘And that applies to Drumknott also, do you understand?’

Rust frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but Vetinari interrupted.

‘Now, don’t let me detain you.’

Rust didn’t.

 

 

 

  1. He did this in clear letters that could be read upside down, if one was of a mind to try. Vetinari had an excellent memory, and whenever he wrote a reminder to himself you could be sure its real purpose was to be seen by someone else. 
  2. It is a little known fact that Vetinari travelled to Lancre on his Grand Sneer, after staying at Bonk. It is said that he met Nanny Ogg, and Esme Weatherwax.




	4. The name ‘Vetinari’s Terrier’ is an International Relations gambit, and more

‘Do you recall when I claimed to have made Sam Vimes?’

Vetinari was standing at the window in his office, and he kept his eyes on the city below him as he addressed his secretary.

‘Yes, that was after you spent longer than necessary being poisoned so that Vimes would have enough time to offend people who you thought needed offending. All the while he thought that the only favour he was doing you was discovering how you were ingesting the cyanide; something you found out long before he did.’

Drumknott kept his voice perfectly neutral. He still wasn’t sure what he thought of that. On the one hand, it was very gratifying to serve such an intelligent man, and to know things that Vimes didn’t. On the other, he often wondered how many times the man had manipulated him. It wasn’t as if he would ever know. _He could be doing it right now._

Vetinari’s reaction to the memory didn’t help matters. With his back to him Drumknott couldn’t get much of a view, but he could see enough of his profile and the reflection in the window to see the muscles in his mouth and around his eyes shift slightly. Drumknott, knowing him as well as he did, knew that any other man would be grinning.

He found this both endearing and terrifying.

‘It is time that I started the next step of his evolution.’

He paused, ostensibly absorbed in the view beneath him, but that would-be grin remained.

‘I’d like him to be known as Vetinari’s Terrier. Could you please run that through our informants? [1] Aim for it to reach as far and wide as possible.’

‘May I ask why, sir?’

Drumknott knew that there were questions that he was expected to ask, and those he wasn’t. Having lasted almost a year in the job he thought he was getting quite good at it. In this situation, the question would be expected. As pleased with himself as Vetinari was, Drumknott was willing to bet that he was just waiting for him to ask. Manipulating people on a large scale was far more enjoyable if at least one person knew it had happened.

Vetinari spun around and _smiled_. It was only there for a moment, but it was an actual, genuinely happy smile, one that anyone other than Lord Rust would have noticed. _Oh Gods,_ Drumknott thought, _he is positively ecstatic. What’s he got in store for the poor man now?_

‘Vimes has a particular way of dealing with the various interest groups in this city, one that achieves my ends in a way that would be rather counter-productive if I were to use it myself. Now, imagine if I were to send him to another country, where there might be a crime, or a political situation that is contrary to this city’s interests. Uberwald, for example, where they would never have had any prior experience of him, but would surely have done their research. The name ‘Vetinari’s Terrier’ comes up. This is met with a certain amount of snickering and raised eyebrows, because what sensible, self-respecting, foreign diplomat would tolerate being known as anyone’s dog? Let alone a terrier, which is, I know, not the most dignified of breeds.’

At this he looked fondly at Wuffles for a moment. _Ah_ , thought Drumknott. _At least he doesn’t have a complete blind spot for the animal._

‘Their first impression of him would seem to confirm these conclusions. He would not conform to their ideas of dignity and pride, scruffily presented as he is, and I doubt that he has ever even bothered to learn how to properly navigate a table setting. He does not abide by the rules of politicking, so they would naturally assume that he is too stupid to play. Indeed, they would see what they want to see; a policeman who is irredeemably dim-witted, and easily lead.

'But then, after he succeeded in revealing the crime, seeing the perpetrator punished and rectifying the political climate almost as collateral, they would look at the name with entirely new eyes. They would know that he is "Vetinari’s terrier." _Mine_ , and they would realise they should have feared and respected him from the start because he carried my name. And consider this. Very little of my own work in these countries is known of outside the political elite, and even they do not realise just how much influence I have in their countries, and on them. So they may not know me as I would wish them to, either. But they would soon be fearing and respecting me because of their experience of _Vimes_.’

At that, Vetinari flourished his arms as a magician would after performing his signature act.

Drumknott could only smile, nod, and say: ‘I will see that it’s done.’

The implications of what he heard spun around in his head as he went to mobilise the informants. This was not about manipulating Vimes at all, but manipulating how everyone else saw Vimes, and himself. He was going to bolster Vimes’ reputation with his own, and expected his reputation to be bolstered by Vimes’ in return. It would encourage people to see them as a single unit; show them that when they dealt with Vimes they were also dealing with Vetinari. _He was essentially giving him his name._ It was, in fact, as married as Havelock Vetinari could have ever hoped to be, and he could tell it positively thrilled him.

_I never stood a chance._

Drumknott only wished he knew whether to be dismayed or relieved.

 

 

 

  1. It was common knowledge that Vetinari had a fearsomely extensive spy network. But a wise tyrant knows that information goes both ways, and that _feeding_ information – and misinformation – has as many and varied benefits as receiving it.




	5. Downey mentions Vetinari’s old nickname

The procession started out rather normally, though based on past experience of being part of a procession led by Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch and the new Duke of Ankh, Boggis wasn’t surprised that it didn’t stay that way for long. There was a scream, shouting about a snatched bag, a running thief and that was all it took to turn a civilised procession into a shambles. 

Downey stopped for a moment beside him as said: ‘and he’s off.’ 

Boggis could tell that he wasn’t very surprised either. Then all everyone else in the procession was running after Vimes, and Downey grabbed his arm and steered them both out of the stampede so they would not be run over.

‘Vetinari’s terrier,’ Boggis replied.

Downey smirked. 

‘I always called that man a dog-botherer.’

‘Who?’

Downey’s smirk made a hasty retreat and he looked around as if he feared being overheard. This intrigued Boggis, because he had thought the question was rather harmless. Eventually, it seemed that the desire to share the joke outweighed Downey’s fear of being overheard.

‘Oh, just some old pal at school.’ 

He said it airily, as if they were discussing the weather.

There was a long pause as they wove in and around the crowd that had come to watch the procession, and then around a few buildings. They ended up in a tavern, and chose a table against the wall, so that they had a clear view of everyone else in the room. 

Once they were seated, Boggis said: ‘You went to school with Vetinari, didn’t you?’ 

He spoke as if it were a non-sequitur, with the same, airy tone Downey had used before. 

‘Hm? Oh yes…’

There was much awkward fiddling with coasters and drumming on the table, but then their eyes met and they burst out into laughter at the absurdity of it, the idea that Vimes would bear to be intimate with a man that he so clearly hated, and that Vetinari, a man with such a fussy beard and elegance of movement and speech would ever fall for a scruffy, unstudied man like Vimes. And then the positions, how on earth would it work? They laughed, guffawed uproariously for a few moments, but then their laughter tapered a little, before it cut off entirely.

They were back to drumming on the table and fiddling with things, but this time it was rather more embarrassed. 

Finally, Boggis looked up. 

‘It’s not actually funny, is it?’

‘No, it’s…’

‘Rather hot?’ Boggis choked out.

‘We,’ Downey said, glaring at him, ‘are never speaking of this again.’


End file.
